Thanks for the post! I first heard of the Mellotron from a Cheap Trick record and always was intrigued by it. I always said to myself that if I was ever to build a real studio ( A life long dream ) the Mellotron would have to be an essential part of it.

Thanks for the post! I first heard of the Mellotron from a Cheap Trick record and always was intrigued by it. I always said to myself that if I was ever to build a real studio ( A life long dream ) the Mellotron would have to be an essential part of it.

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If you can find one, it's a must-have for a studio.

But they are extremely temperamental, by nature of being a mechanical box with lots of moving parts. A friend bought one back in the day intending to use it live with his band, and he found that simply moving it would shake things loose to the point where it was unplayable a good amount of the time.

The keyboard techs for Crimso and The Moodies must have gone nuts maintaining theirs on the road.

Add to that the maintenance aspect of the tape heads (alignment, de-mag, cleaning, etc.), and it becomes a little nightmare.

Having said all that - even with just the stock tape rack (strings, flutes, saxes), it's a recording monster. If you can find the extra tapes for it, the sky is the limit.

But they are extremely temperamental, by nature of being a mechanical box with lots of moving parts. A friend bought one back in the day intending to use it live with his band, and he found that simply moving it would shake things loose to the point where it was unplayable a good amount of the time.

The keyboard techs for Crimso and The Moodies must have gone nuts maintaining theirs on the road.

Add to that the maintenance aspect of the tape heads (alignment, de-mag, cleaning, etc.), and it becomes a little nightmare.

Having said all that - even with just the stock tape rack (strings, flutes, saxes), it's a recording monster. If you can find the extra tapes for it, the sky is the limit.

Opeth uses Mellotron sounds A LOT, but it's all digital sampling.. good enough.. the real thing was big, heavy, and always broke!

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Oh, man, I heard horror stories in the day...

The metal housing that held the tape racks was cast aluminum, which was extremely brittle and prone to breakage. And Dallas Music (the manufacturer) was based in the UK with a distribution point in Jersey, and getting any replacement parts was painfully slow.

Here's a quote from John Paul Jones:

"To walk up to the Mellotron, not knowing if it was going to be in tune or what it was going to do; you might expect violins and get trumpets instead. It&#65279; was a terrifying experience!"

Call me a purist, but if you don't play it within its own limitations you might as well use a string synth.

- D

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Purist!

I was just saying that being limited isn't so always so great. Imagine if the great bands that used it didn't have to put so much time into the upkeep for it and the music they could have created with unlimited note lengths. Everything happens for a reason I guess.